


Making Your Way Home

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:22:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27604847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: Tobin doesn’t know how she got lost, but she knows:This boy?This woman?They’re home.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 85
Kudos: 332





	1. Chapter 1

"Wait, what do you mean, 'they're gone,'" Tobin said, her normally relaxed demeanor tense, her voice taking on a sharp note that was usually only heard by opponents on the football field. 

The fertility clinic's representative shuffled the papers before him. "The clinic has already informed you of what happened, Miss Heath," he said. "When your eggs were retrieved, the contract you signed was for a ten-year period. After a six-month period with no response to our inquiries upon the lapse of the original contract, the clinic had a legal right to destroy or dispose of the abandoned material." His voice had an almost disinterested tone to it, and Tobin hated him for it. She wasn't a violent person by far, but in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to grab him by his boring blue tie and shake him, demanding that he cut through the legalese and tell her what had happened to the eggs she'd stored with the company all those years ago. 

But something about what the lawyer had said seemed to spark a thought in her brother-in-law, and he leaned forward. 

"You said 'destroy or dispose,'" John's voice was calm, and Tobin was glad she had brought him along for this. His steady presence at her side was the only thing that kept her in from pacing angrily back and forth. "Which is it?"

The doctor who'd been standing silent in the corner looked up, and Tobin wondered what John was thinking.

"Erm—" he started, but the lawyer interrupted him. "I meant exactly what I said. According to the terms of the storage contract, after ten years and a six-month waiting period, the eggs were the clinic's property, to destroy—or dispose of, if destroy carries too negative a connotation for you—and they have no legal responsibility to inform you of the manner in which that was carried out."

Still, though, John was excited about something, she could feel it in the way he seemed tense, as if he were just waiting for the right moment to pounce. 

"Let me ask this," he shifted, quickly paging through the copy of the original contract Tobin had dug out of her safe deposit box earlier that year, "in this contract my client was given the option of how any unclaimed or abandoned material should be, as you say, disposed of. There are—" John found the page and skimmed it quickly, "—there are three options here, each of which require a response from the contracting party." 

He cleared his throat. "My client checked _no_ for the 'material may be destroyed' option. _No_ to the 'material may be used for scientific study' option. But _yes_ to the 'material may be adopted for fertilization and implantation' option." 

John took a glance at Tobin before continuing. "So, while my client's eggs were technically the property of the clinic after the six-month waiting period when she, regrettably, did not receive your correspondence due to being overseas for her professional career, the clinic was still limited in what it could do with them, correct?"

At this, the opposing lawyer seemed to deflate a little inside, and after a moment, conceded. "Yes, the material was still bound by Miss Heath's original wishes." And Tobin, though she wasn't entirely sure where John was going with this, knew that they had scored some point in the larger game. 

"And those limitations were that the clinic could not destroy, in the legal and biological sense, her eggs. Nor could they donate them to scientific organizations for use in experimentation or study, am I correct in stating that?" Her brother-in-law's hand rubbed her knee soothingly, and she was starting to see the map in his head. "Wait," Tobin started, "does that mean—" but John's hand on her leg tightened, and she went quiet, though it seemed like her heart might beat right out from inside her chest and fall onto the heavy oak table before them. 

The clinic's lawyer seemed to straighten up, but it wasn't with the same ramrod self-righteousness he'd had when they'd first arrived. He seemed smaller, somehow, and the confidence radiating out from his eyes had a false taste to it. "The clinic disposed of the material in a way—"

John didn't wait for him to finish. "Her eggs were adopted, weren't they." It wasn't a question, and from the way the doctor flinched in the background, Tobin knew immediately that it was true. She leaned forward, unconsciously mirroring her brother-in-law now. 

"You gave someone else my eggs," she said, and the unease that had been in her belly ever since she'd gone into the clinic four months ago to get the process of finally using her stored eggs started became a sharp ache in her chest. "Someone else has them, right? So they're not gone. You can get them back." The last statement came out sharper than she'd intended, but Tobin wasn't sorry. Not in the least. There was a chance now, a hope, and she was going to jump onto it and ride it as far as she could. 

"As my client says, your only option for the eggs would have been to allow another couple to adopt, fertilize, and implant them," John sat back, satisfied now that he'd figured out the puzzle. He was in his element, completely, wholly, and Tobin could see what it was about him that had caused Perry to fall so hard. That intelligence, that smirk when he'd teased out the right answer at last. If he was a woman, she'd have fallen for him too.

"So," he continued, "either they have been adopted and if so, my client will be requiring the name and contact information of the adopters, or, they are still here, unclaimed, and waiting to be adopted by a couple, and in that case, my client desires to obtain them. Any other option would put the clinic in breach of the contract. So," John held out his hands as if weighing the two paths before them, "if you say the clinic abided by the guidelines as set out in the original contract—prove it." He practically glowed at having backed them into a corner, and Tobin gaped a little. She was going to owe them so much babysitting time for this favor. But she didn't care. They were going to win—

But the other lawyer just gave them a small, tight smile. "Unfortunately, your client," he looked at Tobin, "will just have to settle for knowing that the material she abandoned has been disposed of in accordance with her wishes. Anything else, to either confirm or deny your suppositions," his gaze turned back to John, "would be in direct violation of ethical healthcare practice."

"So," he closed the folder before him, slipping it back into his leather briefcase, "with that said, I think we're done here." He rose, looking over them both one last time. "The clinic wishes to extend its best wishes, Miss Heath, and assure you that should you wish to pursue any further fertility advice or procedures with their celebrated staff of doctors and therapists, there will be no hard feelings on their end. Dr. Martin?" he gestured to the nervous-looking doctor behind him to head for the door. 

Alone again in the quiet conference room, they sat in silence again for a moment, Tobin looking over at John with no idea what to say. Hope seemed to be a butterfly, flittering in and around them, just within reach and then not. She hardly knew what to say—was there a chance that her wishes would come true? That she could get her eggs back, get started on that long road to parenthood that she so desperately wanted? Or were they gone? Would she have to rethink everything, figure out a whole new plan?

John's hand came to rest on her knee again and squeezed, hard, pulling Tobin out of her frenzied thoughts, grounding her again. "Hey, Tobes," he said softly, waiting for her to look up at him. "This isn't over, okay? I promise. This isn't over." 

And she nodded at him, trusting him with her entire dream. 

After all, at this point, it was all she could do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boys and bananas and beds.

The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, that was Christen’s first thought as she opened her eyes to the first weak rays of sunlight cutting through the wooden slats of her blinds. Not the one next to her bed and not the one tucked into his crib down the hall either, and for a moment—for as many moments as it lasted—she was going to enjoy the peace and the quiet. She closed her eyes again and smiled, perfectly content to doze under the comforting weight of her duvet, warm all the way down to the tips of her toes.

It wasn't long before she heard the chirping voice of her son through the video baby monitor at her bedside, and Christen shifted onto her side to just look at him for a moment, to soak the sight of him in just as she had done with the rays of sun. Leo was just where he was supposed to be, sitting in his crib, the mattress configured as low as possible to now that he was almost too old for it. For a moment, looking at his bowed head full chestnut curls, she felt a pang in her chest. He was getting so big—he wasn't a baby any longer, but a toddler, and soon enough a boy. And she closed her eyes for a moment, listening to him as he talked to Pete, the stuffed manatee that was his favorite bedtime companion, knowing that at long last, she was going to do what she'd been promising herself for months now. Not let herself put it off any longer, not even if he was perfectly content to sleep in his crib at night still.

Christen opened her eyes to look at him again on the screen of the monitor, her almost three-year-old, and sighed a little nostalgically. This week. She would start looking into a bed for him this week. Even if it meant acknowledging that he wasn't her teensy-tiny baby anymore, with his spiky hedgehog hair, his sweet baby scent, his soft never-been-touched skin. Even if it meant acknowledging that time, as time always does, was marching on.

She watched as he whispered something to Pete the Manatee and then giggled to himself.

Next week—at the absolute latest.

Eventually, Christen rose, and stood by the side of her bed with her arms stretched toward the ceiling, rolling her hips to shake out the kinks of a mattress that, too, probably was past time to replace. She pulled a lightweight robe from the hook on the back of her bedroom door and slipped it on, tying the belt loosely around her waist before heading down the hallway for a quick wash-up before opening the nursery door.

"Morning, baby," Chris smiled as she entered her son's room where he was still talking to himself and his animal. "You didn't want to get out?" she asked, knowing full well that he was capable of climbing out on his own. But like every morning when she found him like this, he looked up at her with a gentle, shy smile and shook his head.

"Want you," Leo said, standing up as she reached over the side of the crib for him, the manatee clutched tight in his hand. And she lifted him up into her arms, settling him onto her hip and soaking in the feel of his long legs knocking against her thigh. The pleasant weight of his still sleep-warm body against her own. Christen nuzzled her nose against Leo's cheek, smiling as he responded by giving her a soft kiss in return. "Morning, mama," he hugged her close, bringing up his stuffed animal to give her a kiss as well. And her heart swelled with love. How had she gotten so lucky, what had she ever done in her life to deserve this sweet, sweet boy.

"Let's go have breakfast, yeah?" she kissed his nose after changing his nighttime pull-up, and danced slowly out of the room toward the kitchen, Leo back on her hip. "I'm thinking ... pancakes," Chris waggled her brows at him as she put him in the booster seat at the breakfast bar, and Theo laughed.

"'Nana cakes,” he grinned at her, already reaching for the coloring book and crayons there, and Christen smiled to herself.

“Bananas,” she told him as she ran a hand over his soft hair, “b-a-n-a-n-a-s.” And Leo joined in for the last few letters, the song a household favorite on their Saturday morning pancake breakfasts. Chris turned toward the cupboard, already reaching up for the ingredients she would need, “Banana pancakes for my favorite boy.”

— — —

The envelope just appeared one afternoon, not quite a week after the last meeting with John and the clinic’s representative. Just a normal white envelope with a single document inside. It was a sheet of the fertility clinic's letterhead, she recognized it immediately. But it was no formal correspondence by any means. There was an address, the letters a stark contrast to the otherwise empty plane of paper. Nothing else to indicate what it meant, or even who had brought it to her, slipped it under the wiper of her car in the apparently not entirely secure parking garage under her apartment building.

Except Tobin knew. She knew the moment from the moment she slid her finger under the flap of the envelope—this was the information she had been searching for, fighting for. Or, at the very least, it was a start. A first step.

"Listen," John said as she paced, holding the paper gingerly between his fingertips, "you don't know what this is, it could be nothing. It could be anything. Up to and including just a cruel prank from some annoyed staff member to prey on your emotions, Tobin." They were in her sister Katie's kitchen, her brother-in-law sitting at the island there while she walked in circles around it, almost robotically, watching her carefully.

"Tobin," he repeated, trying to catch her attention, to distract her away from her mindless obsessing over the note, "listen, we don't know what this is, so let's not rush into anything, okay? Let's take a moment, and sit down, and really talk about your options here." He touched her wrist when she passed, and she stopped, almost looking surprised to find that he was there, and nodded, dropping unceremoniously onto a stool across from him.

After a moment of silence, John spread out the contents of a file folder he'd retrieved from his home office after she'd texted that she was on her way to talk. "Despite the fact that they have no legal requirement to do so, the clinic has sent over an offer for you, a settlement of sorts," he explained, placing a stapled document before her. "Recognizing the uniqueness of your situation, and probably because you're well-placed to go on a real negative press campaign against them if you wanted to, they're offering to do another egg retrieval with you and store them if you're not ready to use them right away. All gratis." He looked up at her, "And I think you should say yes."

The younger woman stared at him for a long moment. "You think I should say yes?" she asked, incredulous. "They gave someone else—some stranger is out there, maybe with my kid. You think I should just forget that?" The look on her face wasn't anger, it was grief. Some kind of terrible sadness that pulled at him. But he couldn't answer her as a brother-in-law, couldn't answer her as a parent himself. In this, she was his client. And it was his job—his responsibility—to answer her as a lawyer, as her lawyer.

"Yeah, Tobin," John looked at her from across the island, "I think you should say yes. They abided by the terms of your contract, believing—unfortunately, but not incorrectly, since you never responded to their attempts to contact you—that you were letting it lapse." He saw her prepare to say something and held up a hand. "I know, I know. You were in France and you didn't get any of their letters. But Tobin, Katie will be as willing to carry a baby for you in six months as she is today—and yeah, it will mean going through the whole process again, hormones and the procedure, but you did it once? You already know the whole process."

His voice was gentle as he reached out to take her hands in his, and he wasn't the lawyer any longer but the boy who'd dated her older sister all through high school, through college. The man who'd married into her family and watched her grow up from across the table at countless holiday dinner, from the stands at countless soccer games. John waited until she raised her eyes to look at him, until she could see him, hoping she could see the sincerity, the genuine love, he felt for her, this woman who had been his sister for almost half his life now. "I think you should take the offer, Tobes, I really do."

— — —

Being a single parent was somehow both way easier and way harder than Christen had expected, than any of her friends or family or complete strangers coming up to touch her belly when she was pregnant had warned her about. There were the happy moments—the big firsts, the soft and quiet cuddles, the pride and the knowing that for at least this tiny person, she was the whole entire world. But there were plenty of moments that made her stop and wonder why she could ever do this on her own as well. And some that made her doubt that even having a partner to do it all with would make raising a child something she would ever have chosen if only she’d known what lay ahead. Because for all his easy-going nature and sweet disposition, Leo was still just a toddler, still in the middle of his terrible twos. And some days, thankfully few and far between, it all came to a head.

She'd had a long day. It was that time of the semester again, three straight days of parent-teacher conferences, and it always made for an exhausting, excruciating week. She had to teach all her usual classes like normal, and then run her assigned after-school groups before ending her day with three or four hours of meetings with the parents of Harley Preparatory College. By the end of the night, all she wanted to do was collapse into her bed. But she still had to swing by her dad's house to pick up Leo and get him home, go through the whole bedtime routine, before she'd really even have a chance to sit down and relax, let the day's frustrations slip away.

Christen was tempted—so tempted—to call up her father and ask if maybe just this once Leo could stay the night, if her dad could handle keeping him overnight just so she could have a few hours to unwind. Maybe uncork that bottle of wine that's been sitting, half-empty, in the back of her fridge for the last few weeks since she'd hosted a small gathering of her teacher friends. She could put her feet up and sink back into the deep overstuffed couch, flipping through Netflix until she found something that wasn't animated or musical. Or maybe she could run herself a nice, warm bath, and bring the wine into the tub with her, not bothering with a glass, let the heat of the water ease the minor aches and pains she'd been discovering more and more of over the past few months and years.

But before she could even make the decision to call him, to ask the question she knew he would say yes to, Christen was already on the freeway heading toward her old neighborhood, her childhood home. On autopilot, as if her body knew what her conscious mind was having trouble remembering tonight—that no matter how tired she was, how exhausted, she'd always choose Leo over everything else. Even herself.

"Hi, Dad," Christen said softly she came into the living room where he was dozing in his favorite chair. She hadn't knocked, just let herself in with the same key she'd had since she was a girl, dropping her coat on the kitchen table as she followed the sound of the TV. And she smiled at the way he slowly woke to her presence, that gentle smile that had been her Northern Star all throughout her childhood. "Leo wear you out?" she teased softly, sitting on the edge of the low table in front of the two recliners that faced the television—her dad's to her left, and her mom's, so painfully empty this past year, to the right.

Her father leaned forward in his chair to brush rough fingertips over her cheek. "Something like that," Cody gave her an apologetic look. "He refused to nap all afternoon, couldn't even get him to fall for the forty-winks trick after I picked him up from daycare," he told her, and Christen felt her hopes for an easy transition to bedtime fall flat. An overtired Leo meant temper-tantrums and tears and hearing a lot of oddly adult-sounding no's coming from such a little boy. "Just a little ornery today, it sounds like; didn't want to leave Miss Clea's to hang out with Grandpa."

Christen began to apologize, to tell her dad how sorry she was that the favor she'd asked had been harder than she'd hoped, but Cody waved her words away. "He's just a baby, honey," Cody assured her. "I've forgotten a lot about parenting babies since you and your sisters were little, sure, but I remember enough about the terrible twos." He gave her an encouraging smile. "That little brain is taking in so much new information and learning so much, he's growing so fast—of course he's going to have days where it's all a little overwhelming, or when something's different, like Grandpa picking him up instead of Mama, and throws him off his game." He kissed her forehead gently before rising and holding out a hand to pull his daughter up.

She nodded, and pulled her dad into a tight hug, just soaking up the familiar strength of him. "Thank you for watching him while I have conferences," Christen whispered against his chest, breathing in the scent of the cologne he'd been wearing for at least half her lifetime now, and let his steady love settle her. "You have no idea how grateful I am that you were able to pick him up from Clea's and bring him here these last three nights."

"You know I love spending time with my grandson," Cody looked down at her, really looked. He saw so much there. Her mother, there in her eyes and the curve of her nose. Her love for Leo, all her hopes and dreams for him. All her worries and fears. But tonight, what he saw most of all was her exhaustion—how it seemed to have settled deep into her bones the last few days. "You look tired, Mo," he said softly, using her childhood nickname as he tightened his arms around his middle daughter, holding her close for a moment.

"I am," Christen admitted before nodding against his chest and pulling away. "But tonight was the last night of conferences, and tomorrow is the mid-semester break, so hopefully Leo will let us both sleep in a little." And she hoped, hoped, hoped he would. "I'm thinking that tomorrow I might go and look at a bed for him," Chris looked up at her dad as they headed down the hall to the room where Leo always napped when he was at his grandpa's. "I think—I think it's time, I think he's ready."

And Cody looked down at his daughter, meeting her eyes as they stood just outside the cracked-open door, his expression amused. "And you? Are you ready for that?"

She made a face, the face all mothers make when they have to think about how fast their babies are growing up. "No," she admitted, with a weak laugh, "but if I waited until I was ready he'd probably be ready for college." And they both laughed at that, Christen sheepish and embarrassed, and her father remembering a thousand little moments in his daughters' lives where he'd felt the same.

"Well," he whispered, "if it's any consolation, I think he'll be just fine." And he opened the door as softly as possible to let her see Leo, asleep on his belly on her childhood bed, Pete tucked under his arm and his favorite blanket spread over them both.

Cody gathered his grandson up in his arms and they slowly, carefully, made their way out to Christen's car, getting Leo into his car seat without waking him. "Thanks again, dad," Christen hugged him once more, not lingering as long in the chilly air of the autumn evening. "Really, I owe you—maybe we can take you out to dinner one night next week?"

"Why don't you order that bed," he gave her an encouraging smile, "and when it's delivered I'll bring over my tools and you can cook us men dinner while Leo and I put it together."

Chris kissed his cheek, laughing now, feeling a little less drained than she had when she'd first pulled into the driveway. "Deal," she said, "but only if you promise not to swear like you usually do anytime you break out the toolbox. I'd like to avoid getting calls from Clea about him teaching new words to all the other kids at daycare."

"Scout's honor," her father held up three fingers and she laughed at him as she got into the car. It was the image that kept her smiling on the whole drive home, keeping her mood bright through the traffic and the stoplights that seemed to stretch on forever before her. Even through Leo waking as she lifted him out of his car seat, starting to cry as she settled him against her hip, trying to balance the boy and the bag and the dinner her father had packaged up for her into neat little Tupperware boxes as she dug in her pocket for her keys. 

“It’s okay, Leo,” she whispered softly against his head, “mama’s got you. We’re home now, and mama’s here.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really fucking suck at summaries ok?


	3. Chapter 3

Tobin promised John that she wouldn't do anything about the information she had received. She'd stood before him, the paper tucked safely away in his briefcase, and promised that she'd let him follow-up, nodding along as he assured her that there was more than likely nothing to do about it. And she agreed, she'd consider the proposal by the clinic. She'd read over their settlement offer and give it some serious thought.

And, honestly, she had meant to. She'd meant to move on, to close the door on the old plan and open herself to the new. Except ...

Except every time she closed her eyes, she saw them—a dream of her child. Just a fuzzy, out-of-focus image. But she knew—she _knew_ —she couldn't let them go.

— — —

It wasn't stalking, Tobin thought to herself, taking another sip of her lukewarm coffee. It wasn't stalking, it wasn't spying, it wasn't peeping.

It was just ... observing.

She was just observing them, the woman and the child who lived in the small, neat house in Hacienda Heights. It seemed to be just the two of them, at least so far. A woman in her early-thirties, an impressive mess of curly black hair that Tobin was certain would look even better if she let it loose. Her skin was tanned, not something that surprised the soccer player for a woman living in southern California, and she looked reasonably fit, even under the coat she wore to protect against the slight chill of October.

But while Tobin paid passing attention to the mother, it was the baby that grabbed her complete attention. Or, not a baby, a toddler, though it was hard to guess his age from her half-hidden parking spot across the street. His—a boy—she was pretty sure, feeling the knot in her belly when she realized. Tobin watched him run up and down the lawn while the woman collected the garbage bins from the street, laughing as he wrapped his arms around her legs, saw the way they laughed at each other, and felt something in her chest twist.

She'd watched them for a few days now, waiting outside for their rushed exit from the house, the woman always running back in for something she'd forgotten, making her seem even more hurried and harried than when they'd first opened the door. She'd followed the car as best she was able, losing them the first few days before finally managing to keep it in her eyesight through the whole morning routine—dropping the boy off at a childcare facility, the short drive over to a school that looked like it could have been used in an American remake of Harry Potter, all wrought-iron gates and matching uniforms. All the while fielding calls from her family, her brother-in-law, her agent, her coach, telling each what they wanted to hear as she sat and waited, and waited, and waited, for another glimpse of the woman and the boy.

On the third day, she'd risked getting out of the car, parking it a few blocks away and walking around the neighborhood, just in case she'd pass them on their usual evening walk. On the fourth day, she did, but lost the nerve to say anything, to introduce herself, to even look at the boy in the jogging stroller or the woman pushing it until they were already half a block past her. And then, she'd only been able to see how accurate her original estimate of this nameless woman was—she was fit, incredibly so—but that couldn't appease Tobin's need to know more, see more. She needed to get closer.

She needed to know.

Was this her son?

— — —

Christen looked at the sleek BMW in her rearview mirror again, watching as it moved into the lane she'd just entered, just as it had every time she'd switched lanes or taken a turn the whole drive home from the grocery store. And it was starting to freak her out. It looked familiar, a lot like the car that had been parked on the street outside her home for the past few days. She hadn't given it much thought originally, assuming that one of her neighbors had gotten a new car or had visitors from out of town, or something like that. But now, as she realized it seemed to be following her, as the glimpses of it she'd had earlier in the week coalesced into the certainty that she'd seen it before, that it was specifically following her, Christen was concerned.

She pulled into her driveway, hurrying to get Leo out of the car as she saw the grey car parked again right in front of her house. "Hey, Leo, let mama get you out, okay?" Chris tried to remain calm, one hand undoing the belt of his car seat while the other was holding a bag overflowing with groceries. She felt the paper give way just as she managed to undo the buckle, and swore as cans and fruit spilled out over the driveway.

"Shit," Leo parroted back to her, his pronunciation somehow perfect, and she groaned, turning her head to look at her son. But the sound of a car door closing brought her attention back to the street, to the car parked across from her house and the woman walking up to her. Christen squinted, trying to place her; she didn't have to think far back. Just like the car she'd been sitting in, this woman had popped up in a number of the corners of her life over the last few days.

Christen reached for her phone, dialing 911 instinctively, keeping one hand protectively on Leo's chest, ignoring his squirming to be free of his car seat now that he wasn't buckled in.

"I'm calling the police,” Chris announced loudly, hoping that one of her neighbors might hear and come out to help. "stay away from us, I mean it."

The woman looked a little surprised, standing up from where she'd stooped to try and pick up the rolling cans of soup. "My—my name is Tobin," she held her hands up, as if she were being confronted by someone dangerous. And Christen almost laughed because she felt the same way, like she was standing before the kind of danger that could turn an entire life upside down.

“Just stay there,” Chris warned her again, shaking a finger at the stranger as she struggled to keep her phone pressed between her shoulder and her chin long enough to explain to the dispatcher that she needed police assistance. She tried to pull Leo up onto her hip, swearing again as he squirmed and fussed.

"Mama," he whined, the tiny Nikes her sister had sent for him kicking against her thigh, "I go down." Leo drew out the last syllable, and she could hear the temper tantrum threatening. But Christen held him close, all the while keeping the stranger in her sight.

"Look," the woman—Tobin?—said, taking a tentative step forward, but retreating again immediately when Christen shook her finger again, almost as if she'd been physically touched, "I'm sorry if I scared you."

But Christen shook her head, unwilling to listen. "Stay back, don't come any closer." She brought her hand back to cradle Leo's head against her shoulder, whispering softly to him to settle down and stop trying to climb down her side. Her eyes, though, stayed locked on the other woman. And if her heart hadn't been racing, hadn't been thudding dangerously in her chest, maybe Chris might have taken a good look at her, let her mind acknowledge what her heart already seemed to know. That there was something ... something familiar about her. Something about her that even under the fear and the anger and the panic was already recognizable.

— — —

Tobin held as still as possible, not wanting to frighten the woman any more than she already had. She wanted to kick herself, she'd handled this so wrong. The sound of sirens approaching seemed to radiate throughout her body, and she felt every whoop and whine like a physical pain in her chest.

"I just," but the woman stepped backward and Tobin swallowed hard, holding onto a can of soup and feeling useless. "I just want to talk to you," she said weakly, and tried to look as non-threatening as possible. "My name is Tobin Heath and—" her eyes darted back and forth between the woman and the boy, "I think you have my son."

It happened in an instant. The dark-haired woman froze in response to Tobin's words, strength seeming to waver as they sunk in, and the boy in her arms took advantage of this momentary lapse to wiggle free. He ran after the the oranges that had rolled down the driveway before getting distracted by the lights and sirens that they could all see approaching from up the block. Tobin moved without thinking, lunging forward to grab him before he could run out into the street to see the police cars he was fascinated by, drawing him up against her chest even as he struggled against her.

“No,” the boy in her arms cried out as Tobin froze now, more than a little shocked by what had just happened, what she had done.

The other woman ran up to her, and Tobin gaped as the boy, crying now, was dragged from her arms. “Leo, Leo,” she checked him over, hugging him close and unlike before, when he’d wanted nothing more than to climb down from his mother’s side and run free, now the boy clung to her, crying frightened, confused tears.

And Tobin tried to explain, tried to make it clear that she’d only been trying to protect him. But before she could even get a word out, the police cars—two squads with bright lights looking almost unreal in the mid-morning sun—screeched to a halt and the three of them were being pulled apart, separated, as the cops began to unravel the scene.

— — —

Tobin sat in the shadow of a squad car, leaning up against the rear door where a junior officer observed her while his partner and the other cops investigated. At least her hands weren’t cuffed behind her, she thought, looking down at the metal rings around her wrists where she’d folded her hands in her lap. She sighed again, bumping her head back against the warm metal of the car.

The police had taken their time sorting out the story, taking her license and the other woman’s—Christen, she’d found out—and asking for all sorts of paperwork. Leo’s birth certificate, his social security card, any information that Christen could provide to prove that she was his mother. Which, of course, she did easily. Tobin, on the other hand, hadn’t had anything to back up her claim that this boy, this boy with his dark curls and his [EYE COLOR] eyes had come from her own body.

Nothing but a slip of paper with an address on it. Nothing that meant anything at all.

As soon as that had become clear, Tobin had found herself being directed to stand still, her hands stretched out before her, while she was patted down. And then the officer who had put on the cuffs read her her rights while a second one took her car keys and began to dig through her rented BMW. More than once she was informed that kidnapping was a serious crime, and no one had listened as she tried to assure them that that hadn’t been her plan. The word “plan” only seemed to make them more wary of her, of what she was trying to tell them.

Tobin looked up at the activity in the yard again, watching as Christen gave an animated statement to the one female officer who had responded, who seemed busy writing everything down word-for-word. She wanted to bang her head against the door again, frustrated with everything. But mostly just with herself, with how she’d gone about all this.

John had been—

“Jesus, Tobin,” speak of the devil, her brother-law-crouched before her on the driveway, “what the fuck?”

He sounded angry, and Tobin wondered weakly how fast he’d have had to be driving to make it to the other side of L.A. in just under an hour. “John—“ she started to explain, but he cut her off, not letting her finish even his name.

“Tobin, what did I explicitly tell you not to do,” he looked down at her and she cringed.

She lowered her gaze, unable to look him in the eyes, “Not to go over to the house.”

“And what did you do,” John continued.

“I went to the house.” Tobin tried to sound ashamed, at the very least.

He lifted her face with a finger under her chin, “And what did I tell you would happen if you did what I told you not to do?”

She bit her lip, feeling like a child being chastised for disobeying her parent. “You said I would get arrested,” she sighed deeply. “But John—“

Her brother-in-law shook his head, cutting her off again, “And what happened when you did the thing I told you not to do?”

Tobin closed her eyes and shifted uncomfortably, letting her head bump against the door again. She didn’t answer immediately, but lifted her cuffed hands up to wipe at the tears forming there.

“I got arrested.”

“You got arrested, Toby.” There was disappointment in his voice, and more, a deep well of sadness. “They think you were trying to kidnap a child, do you realize that? That’s a serious offense that comes with real prison time.” His eyes were wide with fear for her.

“I wasn’t trying to—“ she began, but couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t make it come out. Everything was so messed up, everything felt so hopeless. Tobin wiped at her eyes again, looking around the scene in the yard before settling on Leo, the little boy she was so certain was her own, standing with a man that she assumed was his grandfather, looking sadly serious at the police officer who was kneeling before them.

The tears began to flow steadily, gathering in the corners of her eyes before rolling down her cheeks. “I just wanted to—“ and the words are smothered by John’s shirt as he pulls her into a close hug, rubbing a hand down her back.

“I know, Toby,” he whispered, “I know.”

— — —

Her heart had almost settled back into its usual steady pace, but the events of the morning had left Christen feeling drained, exhausted. The confrontation by the car, the fear, and then the heart-stopping moment when Leo had run out toward the street before being swept up by the complete stranger ...

All Chris wanted was to scoop up her son herself and hold him close, breathe in the No Tears shampoo scent of his hair, the coconut milk aroma of his skin. She felt weak, almost, and her thoughts wandered in and out, not fully grasping what the officer standing in front of her was saying.

“—claim that your son is hers,” the officer read from the notebook where he’d taken down the woman’s statement. “Miss Heath says that you must have adopted her eggs? But that they belonged to her?” His voice got more and more disbelieving as he reread his notes, as if he’d somehow found himself in the plot of a science-fiction movie. Or maybe, better yet, a Lifetime special.

Christen nodded along slowly, the words sinking in, the pieces clicking into place. “Even if that’s true,” she narrowed her eyes, “even if my son did come from her egg, everything was legal. There’s paperwork and contracts and everything.” She patted her pockets absentmindedly as if she might find them hiding there.

The cop flipped a page in his notebook and began to write again before turning to confer with his partner. “Okay,” he said, closing his pad, “we can’t judge whether what Miss Heath is claiming has legal merit but we can take her into the station on suspicion of attempted kidnapping. I don’t know if that’ll stick or if the DA will end up charging her but it’ll help if you want to pursue getting a restraining order, which,” the officer looked over at the handcuffed woman for a moment, “I recommend you do. As soon as you can.”

She followed his gaze, taking in Tobin Heath where she sat, a man in jeans and a UCLA hoodie crouched before her.

“There was nothing in her car that suggested she intends any kind of violence,” he continued, “but that’s no guarantee that the situation won’t escalate, you understand?”

But Christen wasn’t listening any longer. She was watching. From where she stood with the officers next to one of the squad cars, she could almost them both, the stranger who had burst into her life this morning and her son on the porch with her father, a police officer giving him what they’d promised would be an age-appropriate lecture on not running away from her, or into the street.

She focused on her little boy, squinting in the bright sun, catching Leo’s serious face, the way he chewed on his lower lip like he did every time he thought he was in trouble. The way he bowed his head just the slightest, almost as if in prayer. The little furrow between his brow that always appeared when he was deep in concentration.

And then Chris caught it, just out of the corner of her eye. The entire scene in duplicate. Her son’s eyes, the curve of his neck, the worried line of his brow.

She saw it all.

On Tobin.

"Wait," Christen heard herself say, holding up a hand as an officer helped the cuffed woman up and prepared to guide her into the car, "stop."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m making this up as I go so just suspend all disbelief, please and thank you.


	4. Chapter 4

" _Wait_ —,” Tobin heard the word over and over again, like a broken record, just looping over and over again on top of itself, until the word was just sound, just a beat, the rhythm of the thrum of the blood in her veins.  _Wait_ , the stranger, the mother of her son, had said, and it had felt like the entire world, the chaos of their little corner of it, had come to a complete stop. 

Still, Tobin had no idea what had happened, what had so completely flipped the other woman's switch. But she hadn't complained. Certainly not when the officers hauled her up and undid the handcuffs over her wrists, and not when the officer-in-charge had approached her, saying that no charges would be pressed at this time but the complainant—Christen, she'd learned—wanted to speak to her. John had nodded, his face serious, and forbidden,  _forbidden_ , her to say a word. 

She'd been allowed to stand behind her brother-in-law, looking sheepish and extremely apologetic, as he talked to the other woman. The one time she'd even started to add say something, to express how she'd gone about the whole thing in exactly the wrong way, he'd turned around and given her such an angry glare that Tobin felt her stomach twist at the implication that she might have seriously harmed her relationship with this man she loved like a brother. But when he'd finally shaken the woman's hand, and the hand of her very, very intimating father, police officers still looking on as if they were just waiting for the opportunity to break out the handcuffs again, John had given her a slight nod. "Tomorrow," he said, lips set in a firm line, "1:00 pm. You will show up here, you will apologize, and if you are extremely, extremely lucky, she will not throw you out of her house as soon as you do." 

"Wait, what?" Tobin followed him, unable to keep the slightest excited hop from her gait. "Seriously? She's going to talk to me?" John dug in his pockets for his key fob, opening the door and, pointing, like a disappointed father, indicated that she should get in. "But, my rent—"

"It's handled," he said, coming around to get into the driver's seat. "An aide from my firm will retrieve it and return it to the house later today." But John didn't start the car right away. He just sat for a moment, breathing deeply as he stared down at the steering wheel. Finally, he turned to his client, his sister-in-law. "Toby," the man said, and his frustration was more than obvious, "you can't ever do anything that stupid again, do you hear me?" 

She nodded, but he continued. "Your career, your life—you could have lost them both there. Right there in that driveway. I mean, do you even know how close you came to being hauled off to a police station, to getting booked for attempted child abduction?" John closed his eyes and took a breath. "If Miss Press hadn't—if there hadn't been—" but he trailed off, rethinking what he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it. "You owe her your whole life, Toby," he said softly, almost a whisper. "I mean it. She's the only reason you're not in the back of a squad car right now." 

And Tobin bit her lip, sobered at the thought of everything she had risked. Always reacting on instinct, when prudence and patience were the surer ways forward. "I won't, John," she whispered, and she looked up at him, waiting for him to meet her eyes. "I swear, I'll listen to what you have to say, I'll follow your advice from now on. I promise." 

He knew, of course, as well as she did, that there would be other times, other places. That eventually her inability to wait, her habit of responding on instinct instead of insight would return. But for now, today at least, it was enough. "She's willing to talk to you, Toby. It's not—it's a start, right?" 

Tobin just looked straight ahead, eyes focused on something he couldn't see, something that didn't exist for him. "Yeah," she nodded after a moment, "yeah, it is."

— — —

Christen’s hand shook as she rearranged the mugs on the table again, for what seemed like the third time since she’d set them out a few minutes earlier. “You know,” her father said softly, resting his own large hand over hers, “you don’t have to do this.” And Chris leaned into him, nodding. 

“I know, I know,” she hugged him and then reached to straighten a picture on the wall. “But, the things she said, her lawyer said—," Christen looked up at her dad, soaking up the gentle concern in his eyes. This big teddy bear of a man, and yet, she'd seen herself how he reacted when he thought one of his children was in danger. It reminded her of the way the woman—Tobin—had stood before her today, this desperate need coming off of her in waves. "Who knows that Leo isn't mine biologically? Genetically, I mean," Chris corrected herself. "There aren't many people, just you, Chan and Tyler, maybe their partners?" 

She took a breath and stepped out of his embrace, looking down at the framed photo of her son, just a week old, being held by his grandmother, by her mother, her own hands there helping to support his head as her mother did her best to smile for the camera. Her favorite picture, one of the few they'd managed to take before everything had taken a turn for the worst. "She knew, dad. She knew the name of the clinic, the doctor. She told the police when the eggs had been harvested, how long ago I'd adopted them. The dates, they fit," and there it was, the thought that had been sitting, fermenting, in the back of her mind since the day before. "Her story, crazy as it sounds, it fits." 

“That may be true,” Cody said, and gave her a serious nod, “but you didn’t do anything wrong, she has no legal grounds to do anything, Mo.” He looked at his watch and sighed when he saw the time. “I think I should stay, be here with you. Or better yet, we could call your sister, see if—“

But Christen shook her head. "I don't want Leo here for this," she said softly, "and honestly, right now, the only person I feel comfortable leaving him with is you." Chris took a deep breath. "Really, dad, I'll be okay. It's just a conversation, and if I feel unsafe or uncomfortable, I'll ask her to leave and call you immediately, I swear." 

“You won’t think about having Channing come over?” Cody asked softly, “just so you have someone here familiar with the law?” But Christen smiled at him. 

“Chan works in corporate law, dad,” she shook her head, “not quite the same thing. And anyway, she’s not bringing her lawyer either. It’ll just be the two of us.”

He lowered his head, pressing it against his middle daughter's forehead, just as he'd done a hundred thousand times when she was a child. "You're so like your mother," he whispered, thinking of the woman he'd spent more than half his life loving. "You're the heart of us all." And Christen wrapped her arms around his big, strong chest, squeezing him tight. 

"I miss her," she whispered against his sweater, and Cody just kissed her crown. He knew. 

He knew. 

— — —

"Here," Tobin's sister handed her a freshly pressed pair of pants and a crisp white button down shirt, her old PSG media day uniform, and she looked up at her older sister gratefully, blushing a little when Katie gave her a knowing look. "We both know you wouldn't have ironed them, Tobin," she said in a mothering tone, “I found them buried at the bottom of one of the boxes you had shipped to my place—there was still a cocktail napkin in the pocket from that last time you wore them." 

Her sister's voice is strained, the way it has been since Tobin had finally broken down—after John practically demanding she do so—and told her what had been going on last night. The disappointment in her eyes hearing of what Tobin had done, what had almost happened, had been second only to the hurt at the knowledge that her sister had been hiding this from her for a few months. Her husband, she could understand. It was his job, and he was legally bound to keep Tobin's confidence. But her sister, Katie had argued, tears in her eyes, should have told her immediately when she'd finally learned of the complications at the fertility clinic. 

But, older sister that she was, Katie had swallowed down her own feelings to come over and help Tobin prepare for her meeting with the mother of her son. The official meeting, anyway. And Tobin was overwhelmed with gratitude. "Thank you," she let the pieces of clothing she'd been trying to decide between fall to the bed, realizing now just how inappropriate they probably were, and went over to give her older sister a tentative hug. 

"Oh, Toby," Katie sighed softly, hugging her close, and feeling the way her sister sunk into her, the way Tobin always had as a child when she was feeling out of sorts, in need of comfort. "You don't have to keep everything all to your self all the time. This is a really big thing, and from what John said, it sounds like it's only going to get bigger. It's okay to lean on us. Even when things are easy, but especially when things are hard." 

She nodded into her older sister's shoulder, fighting to keep the tears that had gathered from falling. And maybe she hadn't realized until that moment, that exact moment, just how tightly she'd been holding everything in. Tobin let it go now, the frustrations and anger, the fears. She cried as she clung to Katie, the clothes forgotten on the bed, the awkwardness between the two of them slipping away. 

“I’m sorry,” Tobin said softly as she pulled back after awhile, wiping at the tracks of her tears with her sleeves in way thathad Perry rolling her eyes. 

“You’re such a child,” Katie said, and handed her a Kleenex from the box next to the bed, “and you don’t have to apologize for crying.”

She shook her head. “Not for that, Kat—,” Tobin looked at her, needing her older sister, her very first best friend, to see how sincerely she meant what she was about to say, “I’m sorry for not telling you the moment I got the letter. For enlisting John in something he’d have to keep from you.” Tobin took a breath. “I didn’t think about the strain that might put between the two of you.” When Katie looked like she might say something, the younger woman lifted her hand, asking for just a moment more to finish. “And yesterday—I don’t even know what’s been going on in my own head,” Tobin admitted, mouth in a thin frown.

She took a deep breath. “Everything—I had these plans, you know? I was going to find someone and fall in love with them, I was going to play soccer in Paris with Shirley for the rest of my life, or as long as I could keep up with the rookies on the pitch, start a family, grow old. But then we broke up, and I hurt my back and PSG started shopping around for a trade.” Tobin looked up at her sister with such pain in her eyes, it hurt made Katie’s chest ache. “I thought I could come home, you know? I thought home was a place that still existed for me. I figured maybe I don’t have the partner or the team any more, but maybe I could start building my own home, that family and the forever.”

Katie pulled her close again, rubbing over Tobin’s back as her baby sister finally, finally opened up. “But it was too late, Katie. I stayed away too long. I don’t fit any more. I don’t know where I belong. And now there’s all these things that happened while I was gone—your kids, Perry’s, and,” her voice died away to a whisper, “and—“ But Katie just kissed her forehead. 

“You didn’t stay away too long, Toby,” she promised. “And your home? Maybe it looks a little different, or feels a little different, because we’ve all grown and changed, you too, but you still fit. You’re still our Tobin, our favorite littlest sister. Okay?” Katie gave her a deep, supportive look, closing her eyes for just a moment in a grateful prayer as she saw her sister nod. 

“And this boy—whatever happens, Toby, you have us, okay? We’re not going anywhere. No matter how big the distance might be between us, we’re always right here, with you in your heart. Just like you’re with us in ours.”

— — — 

She was early. 

Almost by a full forty-five minutes, actually, and as Christen observed the nice SUV parked in front of her home—not a rental this time, she didn’t think—she reflected on what a good idea it had been to make sure her dad and Leo were gone right after lunch. She’d done it under the excuse of wanting to finalize getting ready for this meeting, of course, but truly, she’d just wanted the house to settle into the silence of Leo’s absence. To let herself settle into the calm center of her body before she met with the woman who had inspired so much unnatural fear and anger and ... and other feelings that she wasn’t prepared to examine just yet. Feelings that conflicted with everything she knew and believed about herself. The briefest moment when she’d wanted to do harm to the woman she’d thought was threatening her family had, in particular, haunted her dreams the night before. And the avowed pacifist, the proponent of non-violent intervention and non-adversarial confrontation was horrified with herself for even the most fleeting thought of resorting to such measures. 

It was with this in mind that she stood, angled just out of sight, and watched the woman who had entered her life yesterday and thrown its careful order asunder. Christen, if she’d been asked, would have bet that Tobin would have shown up five or ten minutes late, offering breezy and unconcerned apologies, entirely absorbed with her status as an international soccer phenomenon. She’d Googled the woman, how could she not have? She’d Googled her and seen years of coverage, and through the it all, every impression she got of the athlete’s personality and demeanor was the same. Laid back, nonchalant, just sort of skimming through her life. At best, Christen had thought to herself as she’d closed the laptop and moved it to the empty side of the bed, the woman would show up exactly on time. 

But yet here she was. More than half an hour early and just sitting there, parked in the street, still holding onto the steering wheel as if she might decide to escape back to her gilded life at any moment. And there was something almost ... endearing ... about it. And Christen wondered, was it nerves that had Tobin here so early? Excitement? Some mixture of both? 

And, too, there was an appreciation for the fact that even though Tobin had arrived so ahead of their agreed-upon time, she was sitting there, waiting. Not coming up to the door, not assuming that it would be okay to get things started early. There was a courtesy in it, a respect for Christen’s decision to offer up this parley of sorts. It was a statement, an acknowledgement that she was only here on Christen’s terms and with Christen’s permission, and it was this that has the dark-haired woman slipping into the old pair of Crocs she only ever wore to run the garbage bins down to the street, and wrapping her warm sweater more tightly around her body in deference to the unusually cool California day. 

“Hey,” she rapped on the window, not trying to startle the woman behind the wheel but failing. “Hey,” Christen repeated herself once Tobin had recovered from the way she’d jolted at the unexpected interruption and hit the button to roll down the window, “do you—would you come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2500 words of not the content you wanted, sorry.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Tobin sat in the neat but clearly lived-in living room, sneaking furtive glances around at the pictures on the wall, the end tables, the shelves. Pictures of people she didn’t know, obviously, but assumed had to be related to this Christen from the similar smiles, the contented way she wrapped her arms around them, leaned into them, in each and every one. And then there were the ones of her and … and Leo. Milestones and ordinary moments, captured and displayed for all to see.

She fought the urge to get up and look closer, fought the empty ache in her belly and the heavy weight of grief in her lungs. Tobin dug her fingers into her leg, trying to stop the nervous jogging as she waited for the other woman to return.

“You sure you don’t want anything else?” Christen held out a bottle of cold water to her, “I don’t mind making a pot of coffee or some tea?” She looked down at the woman sitting on her couch, and saw how nervous she seemed, fingers practically white where her left hand clutched at the armrest while the other rested uneasily on the dark fabric over her knee.

But Tobin just shook her head. “No, no, just water is fine.” She remembered her brother-in-law’s words. She was here to apologize and pray—pray—this woman didn’t throw her out as soon as she was done. So Tobin took the water, and began turning it over in her hands, nerves on fire. “I want—,” she started as Christen sat down, “no, I need to apologize. I know I didn’t mean to scare you, or do anything to hurt you or—or—“

“Leo,” Christen supplied softly, giving her permission.

“Leo,” Tobin nodded. “I just, I saw the two of you and I just couldn’t, I couldn't—”

Christen lifted her hand, putting an end to the other woman’s rambled. “Let’s start over,” she said, well aware of the butterflies in her belly as she said it. It was a risk, a chance, and Christen wasn’t certain it would lead to anything good. But she had a feeling about this woman, like their lives would be changed, in some way, for knowing her.

“I’m Christen, Christen Press,” she held out her hand, “you can call me Chris.”

Tobin just stared at the offered hand for a moment before taking it. “Tobin. Um, Heath.” And she let out a breath she hadn’t even been aware she was holding.

“Right,” Christen said, “and you’re here because of a situation at the fertility clinic I used to have my son.” She bit back a smile as the other woman choked on a sip of water. Most people she’d met in her life had underestimated her, and she’d learned early on that it would be foolish not to use that fact to her advantage now and then. Clearly the soccer player hadn’t expected her to be so forward, to jump right into the issue that lay between them.

“Well,” Tobin sputtered a little, wiping at the water that had spilled onto her pants, “I mean, that’s—“

But Chris took pity on her after a moment or two of waiting for her to collect herself. “Why don’t you tell me what you know from your side,” she said, and reached for a cloth from the nearby basket of neatly folded laundry.

— — —

“I went through two rounds of egg retrieval when I was twenty,” Tobin began. “It began—“ she shook away the memory, not ready to disclose that just yet. “Over the years, the reasons I was glad I did it have changed,” she said instead, and everything about her exuded a kind of raw sincerity that Christen couldn’t have missed if she tried. She folded her hands and gave the other woman an encouraging smile, wanting to let Tobin speak before she said anything herself.

“You know who I am?” Tobin asked, and she saw the woman sitting across from her nod. “Right,” she continued, “so, like, I haven’t always wanted kids, but once those eggs were safe in the clinic, I liked knowing that I always had the option to have them. That future Tobin, if she found herself in the perfect place in her life, could be a mom. But that was future Tobin’s thing, because I—present Tobin, I guess—was too busy playing soccer and just, like, enjoying not having to change diapers or go home to take care of anybody but myself. I could do what I loved doing, nothing had to change, but I had the option to make things change when I wanted.”

She wasn’t sure if this was making any sense, but when she said as much Christen shook her head. “No, I get it, enough of it,” Chris told her, and Tobin let out a slow breath before continuing.

“I was raised to believe that there was an order to things,” and her eyes drifted up, as if she were searching her own thoughts. “First comes courtship, then comes marriage, then comes baby …” Tobin paraphrased the popular old rhyme, and smiled when Christen chuckled. “And I never had a partner that I wanted the rest of it with, the ring and the kid, so clearly I wasn’t ready, you know?” She took a breath. “But then my sisters started having kids—“

Tobin remembered the first nephew, how she’d been home in-between seasons when he was born. It had started then, the itch in her fingers, the phantom dream in the back of her thoughts. She’d held him when he was just six hours old, and sometimes she thought she could still feel the weight of him in her arms, six pounds of sweet hope. His dad’s nose and her smile, the same smile she’s seen a million times in the faces of her sisters, her mother.

“It was like,” she closed her eyes, “like something shifted. I knew what love was before that, I’d felt it, felt people love me and felt love for them. But I’d never felt it for someone like that before. Holding my nephew the first time,” Tobin blushed, “it was the closest I’d ever felt to God.”

Christen cleared her throat, genuinely moved by Tobin’s words. “I know the feeling,” she said softly, and smiled at her. The other woman gave her a weak nod, trying to keep from looking around at all the pictures, trying to continue. She dug her fingers into her leg again, trying to focus, and sat up straighter.

“I got to the point around that time where I realized that I wanted that, I wanted to have a kid. It wasn’t immediate,” she shook her head, “it wasn’t like I knew in that second that I wanted to have a kid of my own, but the thought kept coming up. And the future kept seeming so close, you know? Like somehow the space between now and what could be was disappearing. Like I was losing time.” Tobin smoothed out the crease she’d created on her pant leg and looked over to Christen.

“When I got hurt, it seemed like the perfect time, you know? My sister was going to be a surrogate, and while I recovered I’d be here, with family around to help. But then I went to the clinic to get things started, and they said that the eggs I’d had frozen all those years ago were gone, that they’d been disposed of because the storage contract hadn’t been renewed.” Her voice was throaty, like she was swallowing back tears, and Christen just nudged the box of tissues on the table between them a little closer. “That was six weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to find out what happened to them ever since. Someone from the clinic gave me your information anonymously,” Tobin met her eyes. “And, well, you know.”

Christen sat for a long moment, looking at the woman sitting across from her. And she felt her heart twist in sympathy. “And because of that, you think Leo came from the eggs you had stored at the facility.” She watched as Tobin nodded, taking a moment to think, wanting to phrase her words carefully.

“What if they were wrong,” Christen said, not unaware that her voice took on the gentlest version of its teacher tone, “what if someone from the clinic wrote down my name, but I didn’t use adopted eggs to get pregnant, or I did but not yours, or—“

She didn’t have to continue, she saw the look spreading across the other woman’s face. “What I mean is,” Christen looked across the coffee table at Tobin, but she didn’t need to finish. She saw the doubts there, the worries. Christen saw the emotions, how the other woman seemed to be collapsing in on herself, and made a choice.

Christen chose grace.

“Your timeline,” she offered up, “it fits. It’s not proof, and it doesn’t change the fact that legally, even if it is confirmed, you don’t have a legal claim to Leo, but from what you’ve said about when things happened, it’s not impossible.” And if she had doubted that it was the wrong decision, a good portion of those misgivings got quieter as she watched the way the information seemed to sink into Tobin’s thoughts. The way the soccer player sat up a little straighter, hands finally stilling their fidgeting as she focused on breathing. Breathing and the words hanging in the air between them.

At first, Tobin just felt so relieved to be believed. To be taken seriously. But then the questions started to overwhelm her thoughts, each desperate to be asked, to be voiced into life. “So,” she swallowed hard, “what—what do you want me to do, how do—what happens now?”

“Well,” Christen felt the storm in her chest churn faster, nerves rising to attention, “I think the very first thing to do is to confirm whether it’s true.” And Tobin nodded quickly, agreeing automatically. “And I think I can probably have his pediatrician advise me on the best way to do that.”

The woman across from her looked like she was ready to roll up her sleeve immediately, and Christen swallowed back a smile as she held up her hand. “I’ll call her on Monday,” she promised, and Tobin blushed. She’d clearly forgotten it was a weekend. “But that will probably take a few days, first to get into the office and then to have the results processed. So in the meantime—“

Christen hesitated a moment, but then pressed forward. “In the meantime, I think we should get to know each other. There are some things I’d like to know about you, about your expectations. And I imagine you have your own questions.” She tried not to let her own nerves show, seeing that the woman sitting on her couch was clearly overwhelmed with the tension of the last days and weeks, but even falling back on the breathing techniques she’d learned in her sister’s yoga classes couldn’t center her completely.

“Um,” Tobin bit at her lip, “I mean, what do you want to know?”

Almost everything, Chris thought to herself, but she didn’t let the words slip out. Not even sure herself what they meant. “Why don’t you start by telling me about who you are.?” And she watched as Tobin squirmed a little at the question.

Tobin couldn’t have told the other woman why the question made her feel so unbalanced. Why for the first time in her life she struggled with how to summarize herself. “Well, I play soccer,” the athlete answered her after a second or two, and then blushed. “Actually, that’s about it,” Tobin said quietly, mind full of things she wasn’t really ready to confront about herself yet, and looked down at her hands. “I play soccer, and I’m really good at it. When I’m healthy anyway.”

There was a sadness there, Chris could hear it under the words. She wondered, sitting there and sipping at her water, if it was the injury (well publicized in the headlines she’d found) or something more, something deeper. “That’s all?” she said with a smile, calling upon all the tricks she’d learned in years of working with reluctant teenagers to try and get this woman to open up a little to her. “Eight hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year? Just soccer?” And Christen rose to open the shades a little more, let in some of the afternoon sun that hit the windows of this room just right when it was out.

“I know you play soccer,” she said as she sat back down, choosing the couch this time, leaving enough space between them but deciding that the table between them had only made things feel like an interrogation, of sorts. Not that it wasn’t, in it’s own way, but she’d already decided that this woman presented no danger to her, or to her son—and if there was one thing Christen trusted in this world, it was her instincts—but creating a more open, friendly atmosphere, more conversational than adversarial, could only help the situation right now. “And I know you’re considered one of the best in the world—” she gave Tobin a smile, “but I was hoping you could tell me some other things about you. Like—where did you grow up?”

What she really wanted to know, of course, she couldn’t ask yet. Why. Why this woman had chosen, at a time in her life so far removed from the very idea of having children, to go through the process of having her eggs harvested and frozen. Tobin wasn’t ready to share, and honestly, Christen wasn’t sure she was ready to know. Or to share her own reasons for why she had decided to have a child, how she had ended up accidentally (allegedly) having Tobin’s. There wasn’t the trust between them yet, the kind that would make telling those difficult tales seem easier. Seem possible.

It wasn’t there.

But they could build toward it.

Tobin looked surprised, like she hadn’t considered that that might be a part of her answer. Where she had begun, who she had been and how she had grown into the woman who sat here, in this room, in this situation. And she seemed to relax a little, letting her body sink a little deeper into the couch, leaning back against the cushions, shifting just enough to bring a leg up, curl it under her body as she turned more toward Christen to talk.

“So,” her voice was low, but more steady now, “I was born in New Jersey. But my family moved to Northern California when I was maybe five or six? Early enough that I don’t really remember much about New Jersey beyond a few snowmen and maybe a house with blue shutters, sitting on the porch eating popsicles with my sisters and Jeff?” There was a soft smile on her face as she thought about it, “but there’s a picture like that, so I don’t know if it’s an actual memory or like, just the image of the picture in my head.”

And Chris nodded, because she had a few of those herself, memories that might just be pictures, impressions instead of reality. “What about you?” Tobin asked, “have you always been a Cali girl?”

She raised her eyebrow at the term, Cali girl, in her experience, being just a step above blonde on her mental list of terms people use to discredit or underestimate women. “I mean, have you always lived here,” Tobin blushed and reworded her question.

But Christen gave her a smile and nodded. “Born and raised—my parents moved here to LA from the East Coast a few years after college and decided they never wanted to leave.”

Tobin could understand that. “I went away for college, all the way to UNC, and I loved it, a lot of it,” she told the other woman. “But I really did miss Cali. There’s just something about it, the air or the waves or the sun. There’s just something—“ she looked down at her hands, “I never really feel at home anywhere but here.”

“So,” Chris saw an opportunity to ask one of the most important questions, the one she needed an answer to most of all before she could even think about letting this woman into her family’s life, into Leo’s life, “France won’t feel like home when you go back then?” It betrayed the fact that she’d looked the soccer up, of course, but she needed to know if the other woman would even be around to think about letting her in, letting her have a place in Leo’s life.

Tobin looked up sharply, and there was pain there on her face. The kind of pain that made Christen regret the question, at least a little. “I’m not going back,” she said, swallowing hard, and Chris realized that there were depths to this woman, a kind of bravery that she didn’t know if she’d ever had to demonstrate in her own life. “I’ve been traded out here, to LAFC. I’ve been injured more than I’ve been healthy for awhile now, and my coach, the ownership, I guess they got tired of waiting for me to be the player I used to be.”

She shrugged, but it’s more than obvious how hard it was for Tobin to admit that, and Christen thinks maybe it’s time to offer something—some truth—in return.

“Leo’s birthday is in two weeks,” Christen tried not to focus on the nerves that crept through her thoughts, the whispers and the doubts that grew like something foreign and invasive. “We’re going to have a small party, would you—“

“Yes,” Tobin whispered, grabbing on to the olive branch between them like she was drowning, like it was the last raft available in the frozen sea.

“Please, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is under the impression that I know what I’m doing, let me assure you wholeheartedly: I do not.

**Author's Note:**

> "Can I Stay," Ira Wolf


End file.
